Where We Swam: A Glimpse into our aquatic past

Telestrations:

An exhibit during Gowanus Open Studios 15" at Halyards featuring work by some of the Swimmers of 2015: John Fisk, Suzy Kopf, Natalie Lomeli, Kristen Haskell, Christina Kelly, Melissa Johnson, John Azelvandre, Jen Dwyer, and Abbie Groff. Telestrations was born out of a desire to initiate a collaborative creative action between the swimmers. Telestrations are created by playing the game Telephone Pictionary where a group of players each write a sentence on a piece of paper and pass it to the player on their left. That player then draws a picture of what the sentence is, folds the paper down to cover the original sentence, and then passes it to their left. The process is repeated until the paper makes its way around the table and the original player receives their original sentence, deconstructed and misaligned from original meaning and context. The works of art are final products of the game Gowanus Swim Society played together.

Telestrations the Party:

Our Telestrations party at Halyards the Bar, was the official Saturday night after party of Gowanus Open Studios 2015. It featured video and performance art curated by Alex Sloane of MOMA PS1 , and music performances by Sam Yield, Casey Hopkins Duo, and Big Huge, in collaboration with Arts Gowanus.

Our after party/ benefit for Gowanus Canal Conservency took place at King Killer Studios in Gowanus. It featured live music by Capita Clip and Visual Slideshow by Christina Kelly with work from GSS and The Urban Sketchers.

GIAF is New York’s largest independent exhibition and it features 100 rooms of multidisciplinary works of art, located within abandoned army barracks at Governors Island. The swimmers of GSShad created an aquatic installation that integrates the complex history of the Gowanus Canal with the varying artistic styles of its members.

Gowanus Swim Society's Watershed photo shoot.

Photography by swimmer John Azelvandre with special appearance by OMEN the Fish.